THIS DAY IN 1918 IN THERECORD

Sunday, May 19, 1918. The kickoff of Troy’s $150,000 Red Cross fundraising campaign in Prospect Park becomes an affirmation of Catholic patriotism, The Record reports. Approximately 15,000 people attend the park rally following a parade through the city. Mayor Cornelius F. Burns, local officials and clergy and the orators of the day review a march of Men’s Holy Name societies around the tennis courts where a temporary grandstand was erected for the occasion. The principal speakers are former governor Martin H. Glynn and Rev. P. J. Barrett of St. Vincent’s Female Orphan Asylum. Barrett’s talk is a tribute to nurses from the Civil War to the present day. His praise for Catholic patriotism draws a mild objection from Glynn. While Barrett had observed that Catholic patriotism has been “steadily increasing,” Glynn asks, “When were Catholics unpatriotic? The patriotism of Catholics has rolled down the pages of history [even though] there are some small-minded men and women who can not see it.” Since the 19th century, some Protestants have questioned the loyalty of American Catholics on the assumption that their first loyalty is to their Pope. During the current world war, the loyalty of Irish Catholics in particular has been questioned due to their presumed hostility toward Great Britain, one of the powers fighting Germany alongside the U.S.

“I do not say we have done more than anyone else but

I do say we have done our share and are doing it for this old flag and all it stands for,” Glynn says in defense of Catholics, “We have won our place in the sun on the American continent.

“Catholic patriotism is so self- evident that it needs no proof. Catholic patriotism is written on every page of history so no bigot’s hand can remove it. It began in 1492 [with Christopher Columbus] and will last while earth bears plants and the sea rolls against the shores.”

Vowing that “There’ll never be a Catholic Benedict Arnold,” Glynn tells the crowd that “Fighting, digging, praying is what Catholic patriotism is made of. We have given our labor to make the country and our blood to save it that civilization may reign in happiness. Our acts are on the pages of history like mountains on the plains.”

Glynn notes that Catholics form a disproportionately large number of the nation’s armed forces. Catholics make up 16% of the total U.S. population, he claims, but 40% of the U.S. Army.

The former governor calls on Catholic civilians to “give until it hurts” in order to “place the flag of democracy so high in the citadel that no kaiser’s hand can reach it.”